Volume 1: Methodology

The Black Athena
Thesis of Martin Bernal

In 1987, Martin Bernal published Black Athena: The
Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization: Volume I: The Fabrication of
Greece 1785-1985. It was recognized as one of the more
provocative and invigorating studies of Ancient Mediterranean and Afroasiatic
civilization in recent decades. Following its publication scholars
and teachers from Ivy League institutions down to secondary school teachers. Bernal’s thesis was rather straight-forward
and comprised of three main ideas:

The Greeks and Mediterranean peoples in the 2nd millenium BCE absorbed Ancient Egyptian and Semitic culture and languages.

Contrary to later theories, proponents and
critics of Bernal, the author steadfastly denies that he claimed that the
Ancient Greeks were Black or that the Ancient Egyptians all had recognizably
sub-Saharan, Black or other African physical features.

Bernal outlined elements of Greek civilization and culture that derived from Egyptian culture and influence.
This included the origins of Greek religion and the naming of their gods.
Some Greeks, like Herodotus (484-425 BCE) openly wrote in his Histories, that the
Greeks derived the names of their gods from Egyptian cosmology and religion.

These ancient Greeks also maintained that their writing system
and alphabet was derived from the Phoenicians of the Eastern
Mediterranean.

Together, these beliefs by ancient Greeks formed what Bernal
calls the “Ancient Model” or explanation of Greek origins. Bernal believes the Ancient
Model was intact until recent times, or until the late 18th century, when a new theory arose that tried to separate Greek contact with the wider
Mediterranean and particularly with the Southern Mediterranean and Egyptian or
African regions. A second thesis or model arose in the early 19th century
and was labeled as the “Aryan Model,” as it upheld the identification of the
Greeks as a unique and relatively isolated people who developed in
autonomy from these other peoples. Bernal explains the success of this
later model based on a racist preference for White and Caucasian origins
that were prevalent in an age of open slavery and colonialism by Europeans.
Upholders of the "Aryan Model" had their own theories
rooted in the presumption that the Greek language was closely related to
Sanskrit and Latin. Together these languages formed an Indo-European linguistic
family that bridged from Northern India through Central Asia to
Western Europe. Greek origins were more directly attributed to direct
influence from Northern invaders, Indo-Europeans or the so-called
Aryans.

In subsequent volumes of his Black Athena project, Bernal
introduced a third thesis: the Revised Ancient Model. He accepts that Indo-European influences
occurred and that substantial migrations from the North occurred in
antiquity. He maintains this does not conflict with
Bernal’s main thesis that the Greeks had substantial settlements from the South
and East during the 2nd millennium BCE. To provide
extensive documentation of this period, Bernal published his second volume, Black
Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization: Volume II: The
Archaeological and Documentary Evidence (1991). Instead, there was a soup of Indo-European, Pre-Hellenic cultures and linguistic groups that resulted in an admixture of
Ancient Egyptian and West Semitic peoples and languages. Ancient Egyptian and Western Semitic languages belong to the broader
Afroasiatic language that wwere suffused onto the Indo-Euorpean
basic root language and culture of the Greeks. The documentation of
Bernal’s thesis based on linguistic mixing was published as the third volume, Black
Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization: Volume III: The
Linguistic Evidence. (2006)Reference: see Bernal's own summary website of his
arguments http://www.blackathena.com

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About Me

Patrick M. Kane is Instructor of History and General Studies at Sharjah Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates.
Recent Publications:
The Politics of Art in Modern Egypt: Aesthetics, Ideology and Nation-Building. (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012)